While doing some research for my dissertation...ok, while avoiding doing some research for my dissertation, I thumbed through my copy of
The Real Frank Zappa Book (by FZ with Peter Occhiogrosso). I love FZ. Always have, since I discovered him in college. I've only worn a black armband in mourning twice - once for FZ, once for Hunter S. Thompson.
Not only do I like his music (and for all my joking, his idea of the "Archetypal American Icon Module" is playing a major role in my dissertation), but I like a lot of what he had to say on politics. FZ passed in 1993, but his writings from 1989 could have been written yesterday.
Read these quotes below the fold, and discuss.
The Real Frank Zappa Book, p. 239:
It seems to me that Americans in the eighties exhibit a remarkable willingness to embrace Fascism, especially when it is presented to them on a TV tray with balloons and bunting all over it.
TRFZB, p. 240
Here it comes, folks! Watch it grow! One day, the BIG STUPID goes to a PTA meeting, winds through the PTL club, wends its way to the White House, spreads out from the Oval Office like a cow flop into the judiciary system, dribbles over onto the desks of BIG BUSINESS, and the next thing you know we've got THE
VERY BIG STUPID.
THE VERY BIG STUPID is a thing which breeds by eating The Future. Have you seen it? It sometimes disguises itself as a good-looking quarterly bottom line, derived by closing the R&D Department.
TRFZB, p. 320:
If we were to subtract that portion of the defense budget dedicated to 'weapons we will never use' (either because they could backfire on us, or guys with U.S. high school diplomas are sort of 'unqualified' to operate them - or maybe they never worked at all, but because they provided jobs in some guy's home district for five years, Congress kept the contract going), and apply it to education, low-cost housing, and non-military R&D,, we'd all be better off.
But nooooooo! We spent blobs of money on a start-up contract for SDI and find out later that the initial research reports that said "It will work!" were falsified by omission.
TRFZB, p. 322:
C-SPAN's coverage of governmental proceedings is wonderful. Caution! Buffoons on the Hill! Wallowing in blabber and spew, regiments of ex-lawyers and used-car salesmen attempt to distract us from the naughty little surprised served up by deregulated corporate America.
Has it become impossible to govern the U.S. by reason or logic? America under Reagan saw the rise of governance by trickery, fear, disinformation, and superstition. Oh Jesus! Here come those fucking balloons again.
And one more, from
TRFZB, p. 240, that is eerily close to the mindset and goals of PNAC:
Some people in the Imaginary Heartland of America might say, "Who gives a shit? They ain't going to get us. They ain't coming over here. Why, some of 'em don't even have air-o-planes."
That kind of guy has bought stock in THE VERY BIG STUPID, and has reaped a philosophical dividend which states on its face that, as a Special Christian Nation, we have the right to stomp all over the other guys (Manifest Destiny). God is on Our Side, and we're supposed to do this, because we're the only creatures sophisticated enough to bring peace and sanity to the rest of the world. Pheeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuwwwwwwwww.
He wrote this in 1989, kids. Amazing.
WF
(who put italics and bold in the quotes exactly as FZ did. He'd call it "putting the eyebrows on it.")